#warmains

[jeeyonshim]

I love you, darling.

[stormwaker]

I adore my Warmain to no end. 

[cetaceanhandiwork]

Ragridius Grinn

Based on the character by Cory “Ovid” O’Brien. Built partly using Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, and partially using technology found in Glitch (kickstarter coming soon).

Hard-pressed you feel?—fey fever-ill?—and yet you must. And yet you must!

A spirit-seizing vision is unfurled.

This is the Warmain whose test is the fruit of knowledge. He will offer to sell you quixotic genius on a seven-year instalment plan - a transformative vision of what might be - the kind of vision that “turns tinkerers into deviant scientists and painters into artists”. He will offer to sell you “a madness”, and his only condition is that you be able to bear it until he returns in seven years to collect.

Many of his clients break before the term is up. It’s not easy to stay functional - to remember to eat, to pay the bills, and so forth - eaten up inside by a vision like that. The jewels of lost Ninuan he scatters, like that mythical sower, will only flourish in a particular kind of soil.

But occasionally he finds someone able to ride that wave of otherworldly genius, to flow with it between the Scylla of failure and the Charibdis of self-destruction. It is these, to whom he returns seven years later, to reap the harvest of what he’s sown - soil and all.

Ragridius is unusually selective about whom he even attempts to Test. He only sells to people willing to buy, and only those he thinks have good chances to succeed. Every sale seems to cost him something ineffable - as though he himself is in debt to the Not, and his business is driven in part by a desperate need to keep those debts from coming due.

Creature of Fable 2

Between the Boundaries: Despite never taking payment in cash for his wares, Ragridius never really has to establish how he supports himself in the mortal sense. There’s always enough cash in his bag for a cheap motel and a Denny’s plate. It just sort of... takes care of itself, between scenes, so long as he can think up a lie to tell the world about where he got it.

Strange Rules: There’s no such thing as a “Madness Salesman”, and yet he seems to be implausibly good at making it work. He can spot a mark, and suss out what kind of vision would best suit them. And he can get people to play along - to understand what he’s selling, to countenance the idea that he might really be able to provide it, and to be distracted from thinking too hard about what exactly they’ll be paying.

Iconic:

“He is tall to the point of absurdity, and augments the effect with a stovepipe hat, from beneath which strawlike hair tries desperately to escape. He dresses like an inappropriately cheerful undertaker, or a second-chair jazz musician in the orchestra of hell.”

“His clothes are a heap of lies, of purely technical truths. He wears no shirt beneath his coat. The triangle of dress shirt that bears his bow tie is just that – a charefully cropped cravat with buttons down the front, matched by the two disembodied cuffs poking out of his sleeves. He is totally bald – the strawlike hair is glued to the inside of his hat brim. The lenses of his glasses are painted black[...]” (in this instance, to hide his Rider-eyes).

Cut the Soul: In the circumstances that Ragridius needs to use this power, it manifests as pure force-of-presence. A smile too broad, a shadow too long, and all his clients’ wondrous devices and inventions fail before him.

Entice: One of the secrets of marketing, is making your customers come to you thinking it was their own idea.

Allegory 1

Role: The Madness Salesman.

Failing: Debt. His troubles arise from it - both the trouble he sometimes has collecting what he’s owed, and the debts he himself incurs every time he reaches into his carpetbag.

Truth: “My wares were the cornerstone of Friendship Playland - and I was the one who devoured it in the end.”

Legendary Weapon: His carpetbag full of visions, and his ability to bestow them on his clients as a Superior or Magical Skill. This is not strictly a weapon, although it can theoretically be used as one; it’s mainly statted up this way because it’s a “scary, powerful miracle, represented by a physical object, that costs him a lot to use.”

A Tangled History: Being the secret inspiration of quixotic auteurs tends to get your name around.

Mechanism of Transport: He drives a convertible, which gets suspiciously good gas mileage for the way he drives it. (Also, it can navigate Waylets.)

Affliction: People recognize me in the eyes of my clients. (1)

Skills:

(Superior) Madness Salesman 4

Never Stop 2

Sentimental 1

Style 1

Perk: (Superior) Ninuanni Convertible 2

Perk: Superior Hunter 2

[excrucian]

Thoughts on Making Warmains As Sexy As Deceivers

Okay, that’s an exaggeration. Also, it’s because Deceivers have a book, but Deceivers also have cool self-referential pseudoEstates and hypocrisy in their viewpoint!

But I like the idea of making their pStates/un-elements more descriptive and evocative. While Deceiver pStates are all self referential and are all worded to convey how the Deceiver in question interacts with their “reality hack”, Warmain pStates could talk about the kind of test and weaponry that their Tests are. 

Instead of just “Harmfulness”, Marozia Carolin could wield “Insidious Harmfulness” or “The Harmfulness That Hides Inside You”. Teja Heimerich could have “The Cold and Unfeeling Void” or  “The Void That Seeps”. And of course they have properties that are close enough to their real properties but are twisted - yeah, Warmains don’t have Persona miracles, but these properties define the un-element as different.

Other possible examples, where [X] is something like Fire or Void:

The Wicked Trial of [X]

The Scouring [X]

A Creeping [X] (terror, betrayal?)

The Tribulations of [X]

The Testing Grounds of [X] (for a more environmental test, something like Keeper of Gardens or Impresario)

and example properties, to differentiate that while ordinary void is a vacuum and seeks to be filled by air and everything, the Test of Void disdains air and isn’t so easily replaced - and while ordinary silence is fragile and broken by a whisper, the Test of Silence is more like this.

The Wicked Trial of Harmfulness... ... hides inside ... seeks to lash out ... hurts to experience ... turns its host against others

The Cold and Unfeeling Void... ... disdains air ... chokes those who respire ... cares not for anything

The Scouring Silence... ... extinguishes sound ... refuses to be broken by anything ... stifles the heart and the mind

Other thoughts on fleshing out Warmains could be filling out their roles as scientist-warriors - they could be affiliated to different battalions or army fleets, maybe some see their test more as a weapon to scour the earth, some are meticulous about their test and some just apply it to anything like that ol’ proverb about the hammer.

[stormwaker]

yes, I’ll be drawing this warmain until the day I die

[stormwaker]

Vs. D’Arbonnaire (A Tale of Two Warmains)... ...in which the Warmain Thelesius Frost-- having been corrupted with morality after Tempering a pure-hearted man, William-- abandons the Excrucians’ cause and faces off against his old mentor.  Finally got around to trying out this Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine thing, after about seven years...it’s really cool! I took some liberties with the Soul-Carving Sword concept, as there’s not much information on Warmains presently. :) I had to get around the picture limit by stitching some of them together, so if you’d rather read it all at once and be able to fully zoom in, here is an imgur link: https://imgur.com/a/samTy8G

[stormwaker]

I love my Warmain.

[eri-pl]

…Marozia Carolin in color.